JATO Rocket Car

The famous account of the JATO Rocket Car was one of the original Darwin Awards winners: a man who supposedly met his death in a spectacular manner after mounting a jet engine on a common automobile. It was originally circulated as a forwarded email.

Related Topics:
JATO - Darwin Awards - Jet engine - Automobile - Email

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The story, however, has now been debunked, and classified as an urban legend, though the staff of the Darwin Awards decided it was such a funny story to "grandfather" it in and let it keep its award.

Related Topics:
Debunk - Urban legend - Grandfather

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This legend was again convincingly debunked in 2003 on the Discovery Channel show MythBusters. They replicated the scene and the thrust of the JATO with several commercially-available amateur rocket motors. The car did go very fast, maybe 150 mph (240 km/h), but did not go anywhere near 300 mph (500 km/h) as reported in the original story, and the car did not become airborne.

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